英语专业大学生英语学习动机削弱的分析
I Introduction
Definition of L2 Motivation
In second language learning, learning motivation is one of the
motivations ofhuman behaviors, which intends to reflect the objective
requirements of society andeducation on students’ learning in their minds.
Learning motivation shows theintention of learning, desire, interest and
other forms of learning, affecting thelearning. It is an internal
motivation that promotes English learning (Deci & Ryan,1985), and it is
a positive psychological state in the process of learning a secondlanguage.
It is also thought that English learning motivation is an intrinsic need
tolearn English well. Under the effects of self-control, it is a kind of
mental state whichcoordinates with external incentives, so as it can be
inspired to maintain and goforward to the active direction. Spolsky (1989)
believes that in second languagelearning, learning motivation includes:
the attitude of learning the target language; thedesire of learning
language; the effects made to learn language. Gardner divided
themotivation of second language learning into four aspects: objectives,
learning efforts,desire of reaching the goal and learning attitudes.
Definition of L2 Demotivation
The past researches on learning motivation mainly regarded
learning motivationas a positive factor to promote language learning.
However, many students havelearning passion on English when entering the
university, in the course of Englishlearning, their learning motivation
is getting weaker and weaker. This phenomenonwhich generally appears in
the process of language learning is called demotivationRecently, the
definition of demotivation is mainly based on the concept proposedby D
rnyei (1998): Demotivation refers to the environmental factors,
classcancellations and other specific external forces which weaken or
reduce the behaviorintention or
continuous actions of students. D rnyei (1998) pointed out in his bookthat
the behavior of students was usually affected by two forces, one is
positive force,and the other is negative force. Positive force is called
“motive”, while the negativeforce is called “demotive”. Besides,
demotivation is due to the negative impacts ofexternal and internal
factors which directly lead to the decline of motivation, and it isthe
bination of internal and external factors which lead to the motivation
ofdescent 。
II Literature Review
Related Theories of L2 Motivation
A L2 motivation is very important to learners’ second language
learning,scholars did some researches and put forward some theories about
L2 motivation. Thefollows are several related theories of L2 motivation.
The ones who initially started to have the most in-depth studies on
secondlanguage learning motivation were from Canada (Gardner & Lambert,
1972). From50’s of the last century, they have carried out a study
on second language learning ofsome second grade high school students from
Canada. After multivariate analysis,they found that attitudes,
motivations and proficiency of language aptitudes showedsome
correlations with the proficiency of second languages. On this basis, they
haveconstructed a theory called “social psychological theory on L2
learning”.Gardner and Lambert thought that motivation could be basically
divided into twotypes: type of fusion and instrumental ’s motivation
theory mainly contributed in three aspects: a. Themotivation can be
basically divided into two types: type of fusion and
instrumentalmotivation, the construction of integrative motivation has
internal relationship with itsponents. b. According to the design of
motivation survey tools, the attitudemotivation scale AMTB was designed
based on the foreign language learningmotivation model. c. An overall patt
ern of foreign language learning was formed withthe foundation of learning
Gardner was the first person to put forward the theory of L2 learningmotivation, there were also some shortings as follows: Firstly,
the theory was notnecessarily suitable for foreign language learning
environment, foreign languagelearners’ language learning was mainly in
the classroom, there were hardly anychances for them to contact the
society, so it generally did not produce a strong desireto integrate into
the society of the target language. Secondly, in his theory,
therelationship between motivation and achievement in the model was
causalrelationship. However, many researchers believed that attitudes
may be the resultsrather than causes. Thirdly, the theory was not tightly
coupled with teaching.
Studies on L2 Demotivation Abroad and in China
Before 1990s, D rnyei (20XX) defined demotivation as specific
external force ofreducing the intentions or motivating behaviors. He
thought demotivation weakenedstudents’ motivation of learning second
language. In D rnyei’s view, demotivationrelated to various negative
influences, he defined learners who had the demotivationas those who had
had motivations of learning but lost the motivation of learning forsome
1990s, Christophel and Gorham (1995: 292-306) did some qualitative
andquantitative studies on students’ demotivation. The results showed
that about twothirds of demotivation had relationship with Oxford (1998)
did a tracking survey on demotivation of about 250 highschool students
for 5 years, the conclusion is: if you want to take the lost motivationback,
teachers must listen to the views of students, and have effective
cooperationwith students. Ludwig (1983: 216-217) carried out a
large-scale research on demotivation ofcollege students who were learning
French in the USA. He thought that although thefactors that caused
students’ demoti
vation were not often mentioned, they should alsobe paid attention to.
The plexity of second language learning, another languagelearning
interference, the influences of other learning attitudes of study groups
andlack of interest in the content of the textbooks were all the factors
that causeddemotivation.